Educated Muslims Join the Jihad: “Poverty is Not a Driver of Radicalisation”

Islamic State recruits not driven by poverty, and above average in education

The idea that poverty and ignorance cause terrorism has led the U.S. to shower billions on Muslim countries, hoping to win hearts and minds and alleviate what mainstream analysts doggedly believe are the root causes of terrorism. But it has been known for years that poverty doesn’t really cause terrorism at all. The Economist reported in 2010:

Social scientists have collected a large amount of data on the socioeconomic background of terrorists. According to a 2008 survey of such studies by Alan Krueger of Princeton University, they have found little evidence that the typical terrorist is unusually poor or badly schooled.

In the same vein, CNS News noted in September 2013:

According to a Rand Corporation report on counterterrorism, prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2009, “Terrorists are not particularly impoverished, uneducated, or afflicted by mental disease. Demographically, their most important characteristic is normalcy (within their environment). Terrorist leaders actually tend to come from relatively privileged backgrounds.” One of the authors of the RAND report, Darcy Noricks, also found that according to a number of academic studies, “Terrorists turn out to be more rather than less educated than the general population.”

Turkey’s youth and sports minister said Thursday that members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) should work to fight Islamophobia.

“As OIC members, it is our duty to fight such defamation. Our noble religion, Islam, can in no way be mentioned alongside terrorism,” Akif Cagatay Kilic told the Third OIC Youth and Sports Ministers Conference in Istanbul.

Kilic said Islamophobia tries to make people have a negative image of places where a majority of Muslims live.

“Islam supports all victims and oppressed peoples without regard to religion, language, or race and always takes a stand against tyrants”, he added.